


such a sad plight

by xshe



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Adamant Fortress, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 07:35:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4426829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xshe/pseuds/xshe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She sits silent for a long minute, and she won't look at him. “It was bad, Cullen.” Her thick whispers sound nothing like her usual clear cadence. </p><p>short post-adamant feelings</p>
            </blockquote>





	such a sad plight

Cullen's sore and bruised and still so tired, despite the fact that he slept a solid 5 hours for the first time in months. It's normal that assaulting a fortress full of demons and Wardens should exhaust him, he supposes. He dresses in the dark of the small tent and begins on his mountain of paperwork, hoping to at least make a dent before the sun comes up. He hears a small knock on the outer beam, and immediately knows who it is.

She looks tired – if he's being honest, she looks fucking exhausted, her usual composure left behind in the Fade. “Can't sleep.” she mumbles, and while he can't say he understands what she's going through, he does. She sits when he gestures to his cot, and he kneels in front of her to face her evenly and ask if she's alright.

She sits silent for a long moment, and she won't look at him. Eventually she whispers. “It was bad, Cullen.” and the thick sound sounds nothing like her usual clear cadence. He touches the sides of her head, her cheeks, her shoulders, and lets her talk. She tells him all of it – the girl from Crestwood she'd sent to her death, the chill of the Nightmare chasing at her spine, the resignation in Hawke's eyes, the fact that it was a fucking coincidence that lead her here. She's not chosen. She was never chosen, she never truly believed that she was chosen, but to still know it for a fact... She stops at that, and her eyes water.

He's never seen her cry before, he thinks, and he feels the despair in deep in his stomach like a kick. He's at a complete loss, but desperate, so he does the first thing he thinks of. Moves next to her in the bed, and pulls her into his chest like a child, like his mother, so many years ago. She clings to him, like a child, like himself, and his gut twists into ropes as she shakes with silent sobs and rubs her back in what he remembers to be comforting, back when he was comforted. She falls asleep like that, eventually, curled up with him on his thin cot, and he lies awake long past sunrise, staring at the canvas.

**Author's Note:**

> *apprasisingly looks @ my ao3 works n realizes im too far gone*
> 
> title from if by ee cummings: http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1597/if/


End file.
